PADMASAMBHAVA

Thanks to the great kindness and enormous power and skill of Indian born Padmasambhava in the 7th Century, Buddhism started to take hold and flourish in Tibet. The first monastery was built, it’s name is Samye and still exists today.

From those first beginnings in Tibet, the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism began and is the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism. In his last life, Lama Zopa Rinpoche was a Nyingma Lama living in the Lauwdo area of Nepal. If you are interested, a very good biography has been written about Rinpoche’s past life, entitled "Lauwdo Lama".

We now have four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Nyingma, Kargyu, Sakya and Gelug. I believe a new addition to those four is the Bon school, which originated before the other four, but has now integrated into Tibetan Buddhism.